Issue#4
Features in this issue:
  • AC Aggregates
    Transport and aggregate supplies
  • Davidsons Animal Feeds
    From rigids to tractors
  • L Townend
    Award-winning bodybuilder
  • Hanson UK
    Massive logistical operation
  • T&J Haulage
    Next-generation Scanias
  • TATA Steel
    The new Valast 450
  • JOST UK
    Industry standard
CoverStory
Staying with the MAN
PMW Quarries has chosen MAN as the sole provider of its 8x4 tipper fleet.

COVER STORY: NEGOTIATION, NOT CONFRONTATION

WEST YORKSHIRE-BASED PMW QUARRIES SUPPLIES ALL TYPES OF AGGREGATES AND ASSOCIATED PRODUCTS, INCLUDING RECYCLED MATERIALS AND HAS USED VARIOUS GENERATIONS OF MAN TIPPERS. BULK & TIPPER WENT ALONG TO SEE THE MODERN-DAY OPERATION AND TO FIND OUT HOW THE COMPANY CAME INTO BEING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

There are two distinct approaches when it comes to choosing which make of truck to operate. One: play the field and run a variety of makes to ensure competitiveness and give yourself options. Two: stick with one supplier, build up first-rate working relationships with both the dealer and manufacturer’s staff and deal with any likely problems by negotiation rather than confrontation. Danny Watson and Paul Greenleaf, directors of Huddersfield-based PMW Quarries, take the latter approach and have chosen MAN as the sole provider of 8×4 tippers and support services for their fleet. The family’s association with the German manufacturer goes back some four decades. Although fully committed to MAN, they have tried other makes over the years, but find the product and dealer support they receive is better than the alternatives.

TATA TAKES TO TIPPING

MAJOR STEEL PRODUCER TATA HAS DEVELOPED A SPECIAL ABRASION-RESISTANT STEEL CALLED VALAST 450, SUITABLE FOR MULTIPLE APPLICATIONS, BUT PARTICULARLY FOR USE IN TRUCK TIPPING BODIES. BULK & TIPPER REPORTS.

Special abrasion resistant (AR) steels have become the standard choice for almost all steel tipping bodies, ejector trailers and many other bulk haulage vehicles. Applications where resistance to wear and the ability to absorb heavy impact without excessive deformation or fracture are key requirements, leading to a long service life. Competitive unladen weight and reasonable initial costs are also important elements to consider when operators are specifying new vehicles and trailers – before the introduction of these special steels hauliers had far less choice.

Previously the alternatives were limited, mild steel bodies, reinforced with closely spaced cross-members, internal ribs and other features would stand quite a bit of punishment, but they soon showed battle scars. Also, there was a considerable payload penalty for road-going vehicles. Aluminium is considerably lighter, but more expensive and vulnerable to damage if subjected to hard use with big diameter stone, demolition rubble or other heavily abrasive material.

Issue Four: January 2020

Issue Four: with 150+ pages of first-class journalism and photography, what more can you wish for? Bulk & Tipper, Britain’s best loved niche transport title! Click the appropriate link below to purchase your annual subscription, or individual copy.

A SMART WHITE FLEET

LANCASHIRE-BASED RJ RICH AND SON’S FLEET OF SMART POWDER TANKERS – A REGULAR SIGHT IN MANY AREAS – HAS A SIMPLE BUT EYE-CATCHING LIVERY. IT’S ALWAYS CLEAN AND WELL PRESENTED, AND GIVES AN IMPRESSION OF AN EFFICIENT AND A WELL-RUN OPERATION. BULK & TIPPER WENT ALONG TO TALK TO STEVE RICH AND HIS WIFE PAULA.

A thorough understanding of the needs of your customers, combined with an in-depth knowledge of all aspects of your operation, is a pretty good recipe for success in bulk powder transport. Add to the mix first rate equipment and many long-serving staff who know their job inside out, individuals who are quite capable of working with just the minimum amount of supervision, and you have a winning formula. RJ Rich and Son has a 25-strong fleet, plus four dedicated subcontractors, and is based at three locations, with the HQ at Longridge, Lancashire. The out-based vehicles are at Sharpness, Gloucestershire and Portland, Dorset. It might be thought that it requires a substantial administrative staff to keep the operation on track, but company directors Steve Rich and his wife Paula do it all with just the assistance of a transport manager, along with workshop staff and a team of drivers who know what they are doing.

They split their time between the main depot and the other locations, travelling down to Gloucestershire and Dorset a couple of times each month. This gives the opportunity to keep a close eye on the operation, liaise with staff and most importantly, gives direct contact with customers on a regular basis so that any operational issues can be dealt with immediately.

CEMENTING ITS REPUTATION

HANSON UK IS ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S LEADING SUPPLIERS OF CEMENT, AGGREGATES, ASPHALT AND CONCRETE. EACH WEEK THE COMPANY MOVES MORE THAN THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION TONNES OF MATERIAL BY ROAD, RAIL AND SEA. BULK & TIPPER WENT TO CLITHEROE TO MEET SOME OF THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ROAD MOVEMENTS.

For a moment, going into the Ribblesdale office block of Hanson Cement in Clitheroe, in Lancashire, is like stepping back in time. As you go through the front door of the white 1930s building, you’re faced with an ornate wooden staircase that leads up to the main offices on the first floor. This extravagantly carved structure came from the steam ship RMS Olympic, the sister ship of the ill-fated Titanic. The Olympic carried the great and the good across the Atlantic for 24 years before being decommissioned and broken up on Tyneside in the 1930s, and some of her luxurious fittings found their way to Clitheroe! Who says recycling is a new idea? We need to start with a quick industrial history lesson. The Hanson name has appeared relatively recently at the cement works, but there are records of limestone workings on the site dating back to the sixteenth century, when teams of packhorses carried lime through Clitheroe to markets further afield. By 1773, records show that there were often as many as 1,000 packhorse loads going through the town every day. The current works date back to the 1930s, when Ribblesdale Cement was created.

Issue Four: January 2020

Issue Four: with 150+ pages of first-class journalism and photography, what more can you wish for? Bulk & Tipper, Britain’s best loved niche transport title! Click the appropriate link below to purchase your annual subscription, or individual copy.

NEXT GENERATION WALKERS DRIVE NEXT GENERATION SCANIAS

IT’S 35 YEARS SINCE TED AND JUDY WALKER, FROM CHATBURN IN LANCASHIRE, BOUGHT THEIR FIRST BULK TIPPER. THEIR SON, TREVOR, IS NOW JOINT MANAGING DIRECTOR OF T&J HAULAGE, WHICH RUNS 20 VEHICLES FROM A PURPOSE BUILT DEPOT IN CLITHEROE. BULK & TIPPER WENT TO MEET HIM.

Trevor Walker has never been frightened of hard work. From the age of 14 he worked on a dairy farm, milking the cows before going to school, and then milking them again when school had finished. He worked on the farm as a general dogsbody for four years, seven days a week until he was 18, when he joined a plant hire firm, driving diggers for three years. But what he really wanted to do was to join his Mum and Dad and older brother, in the family business. Ted and Judy, the “T&J” of T&J Haulage, started their business in August 1984 with a brand new Leyland Roadtrain tractor unit coupled to a Craven Tasker trailer. The whole outfit cost about £45,000, and was put to work hauling stone as a sub-contractor for one of Ted’s friends. Ted did the driving, and Judy looked after the paperwork. A year later, the fleet doubled when Ted and Judy’s son, Richard, turned 21, and they bought another Leyland Roadtrain for him. And four years later, younger brother Trevor reached his 21st birthday and could, at last, play his part in the expansion of T&J Haulage. His first vehicle was a Foden.

TOUGH STEEL BODIES

AWARD-WINNING WEST YORKSHIRE-BASED TIPPER BODYBUILDER L TOWNEND IS A THRIVING CONCERN, AND ALTHOUGH RELATIVELY MODEST IN SIZE, SUPPLIES BODIES TO TIPPER OPERATORS SITED THROUGHOUT THE UK. BULK & TIPPER REPORTS.

At one time specialist tipper bodybuilders tended to be spread throughout the regions, generally dealing with operators in the locality, meeting the requirements of the local market, which was often dictated by the dominant industries in the area. Huge changes in the country’s industrial base over the past 30 years has meant that bodybuilders have to look for business from outside their local area to survive, which brought about consolidation within the industry. This has led to the growth of the major players in the market, often at the expense of the smaller companies, but there is always the exception to the rule. Some of the smaller manufacturers have always found ways to adapt, strong competition often spurs them on to greater things. There have always been the large companies that deal with operators throughout the country, either through regional depots, a nationwide sale force or via a network of appointed dealers.

Issue Four: January 2020

Issue Four: with 150+ pages of first-class journalism and photography, what more can you wish for? Bulk & Tipper, Britain’s best loved niche transport title! Click the appropriate link below to purchase your annual subscription, or individual copy.

TRIALLING THE TRACTORS

SHOTTS-BASED, DAVIDSONS ANIMAL FEEDS IS EVALUATING TWO HIGH SPECIFICATION VOLVO FM TRACTOR UNITS THAT HAUL NON-TIPPING, MULDOON TRAILERS. BULK & TIPPER VISITS THE OPERATION.

Davidsons Animal Feeds is a business that never rests on its laurels. A long-held policy of continual investment across every department of this highly regarded, family-owned company has delivered organic growth for over four decades. The ongoing theme of progress also extends to its own account delivery fleet, which is continually benchmarked by the latest software technologies.

Operations director, William Davidson’s recent initiative sees three eight-wheeled rigids replaced with two non-tipping artics. The plan is already delivering efficiencies, in addition to increasing vehicle manoeuvrability and flexibility levels. “Euro 6 eight wheelers are really heavy, we needed to look at alternatives,” says Davidson. “It’s been a brave move putting artics into places we’ve never considered suitable before.” The new units are tag-axle Volvo FM tractors coupled to tandem axle, rear steer Muldoon trailers.

THE FOREFRONT OF TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENTS

BOLTON-BASED EDBRO, PART OF THE JOST WORLD, IS THE UK MARKET LEADER PRODUCING TIPPING GEAR AND OTHER HYDRAULIC EQUIPMENT. BULK & TIPPER VENTURED TO BOLTON TO SPEAK TO THE SENIOR MANAGEMENT AND VIEW THE PRODUCTION FACILITIES.

Few companies can claim to have been involved in a sector of the transport industry right from the beginning and still be trading. But taking things a step further, only one hydraulic tipping gear manufacturer can legitimately say that it invented the concept way back in 1916 and is still at the forefront of technical developments. Bolton-based Edbro, part of the JOST World since 2012, has been an integral part of the tipper market right from the start, when local engineer Maurice Edwards devised a way of tipping a vehicle body to discharge the load, by means of a hydraulic ram powered by a pump driven by the truck’s engine. Until then the only way to tip a load was either by a hand-powered worm drive or basic gravity. The new invention soon attracted the attention of forward-thinking hauliers and Edwards had an instant success story on his hands.

Issue Four: January 2020

Issue Four: with 150+ pages of first-class journalism and photography, what more can you wish for? Bulk & Tipper, Britain’s best loved niche transport title! Click the appropriate link below to purchase your annual subscription, or individual copy.

FINDING THE RIGHT PEOPLE

MALTBY-BASED AC AGGREGATES, WHICH STARTED WITH A SINGLE USED TRUCK, HAS GROWN UP TO BECOME A SUCCESSFUL TRANSPORT AND AGGREGATE SUPPLIES COMPANY. BULK & TIPPER EXPLAINS HOW IT HAPPENED.

A critical phase in the development of any business is when the founder intends to take a step back and let others take responsibility for part of the operation. This can be a difficult time, particularly if they have controlled all aspects of the operation right from the start. Successful businesses are invariably created and driven forward by committed individuals who put the heart and soul into the operation.

Trusting someone else to make key decisions on your behalf can be very hard to accept when you have invested so much of yourself in the business. Those that are able to make this step invariably take great care in selecting the right individuals to take things forward. Part of the process is to let the new team to get on with the job once you are satisfied that you have made the right choice – otherwise there is little point in making this step in the first place.

VOLVO’S WEIGHT WATCHER

A VOLVO FH 500 LIGHTWEIGHT IS PUT THROUGH ITS PACES ON THE ROAD FOR A WEEK BY BULK & TIPPER TO FIND OUT HOW IT PERFORMS IN THE EVERYDAY WORLD OF THE HAULAGE INDUSTRY.

This is the first of our real-life assessments of vehicles and trailers that are designed specifically for use in the Bulk and Tipper sector. We drove a Volvo FH 500 Lightweight tractor unit, pulling a steel-bodied Rothdean tipping trailer belonging to Wiltshire-based operator D K Barnsley, whose regular cargoes include all types of scrap metal, aggregates and a wide range of non-hazardous waste material for recycling. As a result, we visited scrap yards, quarries, docks and the notorious steelworks in Cardiff that we shan’t name, but will be all too familiar to drivers and operators! We used a mixture of routes, everything from motorways to country lanes, pretty much an average week for tipper drivers in this sector and we had a total of four nights in the relatively compact cab.

Issue Four: January 2020

Issue Four: with 150+ pages of first-class journalism and photography, what more can you wish for? Bulk & Tipper, Britain’s best loved niche transport title! Click the appropriate link below to purchase your annual subscription, or individual copy.

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